A White Christmas

We left Atlanta the Monday before Christmas for Park City, Utah where we go every year to ski with family. Although I had a cold for the first few days of the trip, it was a really nice time and I did manage to ski on Friday (and only fell once). Although I definitely don't feel like a 'real skiier', I found myself more confident and able to enjoy it more rather than just worrrying about whether I will break my leg the whole time. It was the snowiest trip since I've been there and it was gorgeous to have a real white Christmas. The highlights of the trip included Matt's cousin Alex's song and dance routines, a delicious Christmas dinner at Chez Betty, ice skating on Christmas day, and major scores at outlet stores. We got home last Sunday with no delays at all. Here are some photos of the trip......

Once we got back home, I was greeted with a lovely stomach bug and then the same cold that kept fighting it's way back to me (and is still lingering).

This is definitely the time of year that above all else, I realize how lucky I am to have such loving and supportive family and friends. I am so thankful and blessed.

Happy New Year to all!

Time flies...

When you are doing 8 million things. Isn't that how the saying goes? I apologize to anyone that actually keeps up with reading this, since I clearly have not been. But, as you know, things have been busy around here. This is why I haven't been writing....

1. The House- We have been enjoying unpacking, buying some furniture, and generally just enjoying our house. We still have some boxes to unpack but we are having a housewarming party soon...so I am hoping that will motivate us to do it by then:)

2. Holidays....We had a very nice Thanksgiving with my family here in Atlanta. It was very quiet and nice. I worked most of the holiday week. After Thanksgiving we bought a very nice, but fake tree that actually looks pretty real. Here it is! It's exciting to have a full size tree for the first time together! We'll celebrate Christmas with my family here before we head to Utah for 6 days with Matt's family for skiing.

3. School/work (same thing)- I've been working hard to get my prospectus (the proposal for my dissertation ) finished very soon. I hope to defend it (OK, have to defend it) in March at the latest which means it's actually due in early February. Teaching 3 classes (but mostly grading for them) and coordinating the program I am has kept me very, very busy. I went to a conference in Orlando for about 5 days recently and while the conference was just "OK", I had fun going to Epcot and Hollywood Studios one day. I'll be doing quite a bit of work over the 'break' since I have a lot of program coordination-type things to do before the semester begins on the 5th....too early!

That pretty sums up the major stuff. We had 2 holiday parties to go to this weekend, but Matt is pretty sick and I am either just plain exhausted or getting sick, so we missed them both:( We are now obsessed with the show "Weeds" (yes, about 5 years late to that) so we've been at home watching that and getting excited about our new bedroom furniture and mattress that will be delivered this week!!!

Shopping, wrapping, packing (and unpacking), cooking, and cleaning are overloading the to-do list, but it's all stuff to be grateful to be able to do!